The impact of global warming on the vast Southern Ocean around Antarctica is starting to pose a threat to ocean currents that distribute heat around the world, Australian scientists say, citing new deep-water data.

Melting ice-sheets and glaciers in Antarctica are releasing fresh water, interfering with the formation of dense "bottom water," which sinks 4-5 kilometers to the ocean floor and helps drive the world's ocean circulation system.

Now I'm really scared. What will we ever do with dense water interference. I do note that most of the density on the issue in general, is that between the ears of the ever-louder, somber, catastrophic proclamations of doom by alleged "scientists", fully dependent on even more studies requiring more studies of course, ensuring their continued employment. Let's see where this one is going (not that we don't already know)

A slowdown in the system known as "overturning circulation" would affect the way the ocean, which absorbs 85 percent of atmospheric heat, carries heat around the globe.

"If the water gets fresh enough ... then it won't matter how much ice we form, we won't be able to make this water cold and salty enough to sink," said Steve Rintoul, a senior scientist at the Australian government-funded CSIRO Marine Science.

Considering the earth's surface is roughly 75% covered by water, you can at least get part of your dire prediction categorized as truthful. I didn't know that we were forming ice, here I was all these years thinking that sub-freezing atmospheric temperatures influencing water produced ice. Dealing with the next bit of blather, ummm sorry Steve but stratification of ocean waters due to salinity and temperature aren't dependent on the ice formations that Halliburton and Cheney operate out of the basement in the White House office building. The introduction of salt, good old NaCl will indeed make water "heavier", but specific gravity (aka density) would be the more appropriate term in the scientific context we're using here. Yes temperature also changes the density of water with colder temperatures making the water more dense. Of interest here is another little fact, that water as it approaches freezing , rapidly decreases in density and increases in specific volume, as most people will know a closed container full of water will be broken as the water changes state into ice and taking up more room. That puts your statement into a bit of conflict doesn't it? If we cool the water further, approaching it's change of state from liquid to solid it won't sink. Notice how icebergs float?

"Changes would be felt ... around the globe," said Rintoul, who recently led a multinational team of scientists on an expedition to sample deep-basin water south of Western Australia to the Antarctic.

Water dense enough to sink to the ocean floor is formed in polar regions by surface water freezing, which concentrates salt in very cold water beneath the ice. The dense water then sinks.

Our academic again resorts to a bit more factual data on his way to the BS flag being tossed out. The water immediately beneath the ice pack has a higher salinity because decreasing temperatures of water reduce it's ability to contain dissolved solids (such as salt). Those poor little salt ions floating around will either find a place they can maintain their self-esteem, dissolved in the water or precipitate out of the solution. Anyone trying to stir sugar into a glass of cold tea will notice this phenomena. Of course, I wouldn't expect you be familiar with this observation, as I'm sure your beverage of choice is pre-sweetened Kool-Aid

Only a few places around Antarctica and in the northern Atlantic create water dense enough to sink to the ocean floor, making Antarctic "bottom water" crucial to global ocean currents.

A fact noted by observing all the other oceans that don't have any water at their bottom.

But the freshening of Antarctic deep water was a sign that the "overturning circulation" system in the world's oceans might be slowing down, Rintoul said, and similar trends are occurring in the North Atlantic.

Well let's think about this tidbit of prevarication with some more insight. The deep water reduction in salinity (freshening) as you put it, would be indicative of the water becoming colder (but not freezing) and it's salinity would decrease as well. The circulatory system that you are carefully trying to put in "danger" is driven primarily by the variance in ocean temperatures vs. depth. It's called convection, and it speeds up as a function of temperature differences. Interestingly (and conveniently for submarine warfare) there are anomalous temperature differences with depth throughout the ocean. They are called thermoclines and useful as the "cold" layers transmit sound much better, allowing a submarine to "hear" much farther than other depths might permit.

For the so-called Atlantic Conveyor, the surface warm water current meets the Greenland ice sheet then cools and sinks, heading south again and driving the conveyor belt process.

But researchers fear increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet risks disrupting the conveyor. If it stops, temperatures in northern Europe would plunge.

Call me geographically challenged, but I though we were just talking about Antarctica? Did Greenland relocate without leaving a forwarding address? Let's go over this shamefully stupid statement. If more ice melts from the pack, it will sink at a faster rate to the lower depths. It's movement would entrain (sorry another scientific term) even more water and accelerate your "conveyor" effect, NOT stop it moron. Thermodynamic processes move at a rate determined by the absolute temperatures of the heat source vs. the heat sink. Now to continue fisking your junk science a little more. About 90% of the solar heating of the oceans occur in the upper few hundred feet of the surface. The heat transfer mechanism is primarily radiant heat, that is, direct impact of sunlight on the surface being absorbed by the non-transparent materials like plankton and assorted algaes along with other contaminants. The sea in turn, releases (or conversely) absorbs it's heat primarily by convection from the atmosphere moving across it's surface. Your ocean Conveyor O' Doom™, is driven by the relative differences in the heat rate of the ocean between the equatorial and polar regions, not melting ice in the polar latitudes. The only reasonable method to impact this would be resetting the earth's polar axis to "0" inclination in it's orbit. I'm sure with the sufficient application of offsets, the Goreacle can correct this too, as a follow-on to inventing the Intertubewebnet. I do notice what must be a typo in your scientific spewage up there. The topic was "Gobal Warming" right? Call me a right-wing knuckle dragger, but how does Global Warming lead to plunging temperatures in Norther Europe? The general rule as I understand it, is earth's atmosphere is warming due to the depradations of man. Butt-kissing academics like yourself are tasked with dithering about to find even more examples of how, what and where civilization is going to do, because it's getting warmer, not colder. I see you are taking a back-door to arrive at the predetermined conclusion, but unfortunately you picked the wrong phenomena. Global Warming that you idiots are so intent on tagging us humans with, would likely bring about an increase in the ocean currents.

Rintoul, who has led teams tracking water density around the Antarctic through decades of readings, said his findings add to concerns about a "strangling" of the Southern Ocean by greenhouse gases and global warming.

Rintoul, leading teams of even more zombies, wasting public funds for decades. The only strangling you can prove involves what some might say choking and chickens, but that's just me.

Australian scientists warned last month that waters surrounding Antarctica were also becoming more acidic as they absorbed more carbon dioxide produced by nations burning fossil fuels.

Acidification of the ocean is affecting the ability of plankton -- microscopic marine plants, animals and bacteria -- to absorb carbon dioxide, reducing the ocean's ability to sink greenhouse gases to the bottom of the sea.

Ohh, you have a 'new' approach I see, and you promptly hop on it to make yourself look even more foolish. Let's talk pH since you brought the subject up. I'll agree that dissolved gases in water affect the pH, one of the gases that could decrease the pH (become more acidic) is CO2, a relatively small component of the gas mixture in the atmosphere, about .04% to be more exact. The two major gases are Nitrogen and Oxygen and a number of smaller fractional gases. Nitrogen is about 80% of the mixture and generally inert, EXCEPT when it's ionized by interaction with solar radiation in the troposphere and even more importantly by lightning. So a nice lighting storm or very clear conditions allowing more solar radiation to penetrate farther into the atmosphere will increase the formation of ionized nitrogen. Gas partial pressure laws will then do their thing and force more ionic Nitrogen into the water and with some more help from Sol, an endothermic reaction causes Nitric Acid to form, acidifying the water. Still with me? Of the .04% of CO2 in the atmosphere only about 1% of that value is from human contributions. If you do the math the result is that an incredibly small amount of the dissolved ocean gas. Perhaps the most laughable statement in your dire prediction is right here. I restate the blockquote by itself for us to laugh at it's shamelessness.

as they absorbed more carbon dioxide produced by nations burning fossil fuels.

So the oceans only absorb CO2 produced by man, ignoring the other 99.06% of naturally occurring CO2. Wow, Halliburton really must be producing some attractive CO2, in order for the oceans to grab up theirs. Now let me turn this whole joke on it's head. We are to believe that Global Warming is going to stop the ocean currents, freeze northern europe and make the southern oceans more acidic because we burn coal in Michigan or drive SUVs in Arizona and generally warm us all to death? Did I get this right? Do you have one clue how asinine this looks? But wait, there's more scary straw-men to toss out for us.

Rintoul said that global warming was also changing wind patterns in the Antarctic region, drawing them south away from the Australian mainland and causing declining rainfall in western and possibly eastern coastal areas.This was contributing to drought in Australia, one of the world's top agricultural producers, he said.

I thought you were studying ocean densities and conveyor belts? Or does invoking the hallowed term of "Global Warming" instantaneously confer the all-knowing, all-seeing wisdom of the Goreacle?

Pathetic, simply pathetic and the saddest of it all, is how many you can dupe into the bald-face lies to pony-up even more money, stolen out of the taxpayer's pockets.

Fair Use

This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.